Mainstream Media Goes Full McCarthyite

[Draggingtree]

Mises:

Mainstream Media Goes Full McCarthyite

14 Comments

15 hours ago Hunter Lewis

 

Senator Joe McCarthy perfected the technique in the United States: whenever you disagree with anybody, don’t debate ideas, go right into name calling. In McCarthy’s day, the epithet of choice was “Communist.” In recent years, it has morphed into “racist, sexist, homophobe, latinophobe, Islamophobe, xenophobe etc., etc."

 

There were Communists in McCarthy’s day, which made his technique seem to work for a while. Richard Nixon was accused of being a McCarthyite because he thought State Department employee and Georgetown upper crust favorite Alger Hiss was a Stalinist agent, but eventually Soviet records confirmed that Hiss was indeed a Stalinist agent. Because there are racists and sexists in our society, it makes it easier to try to destroy people with these epithets whether they fit or not.

 

Hillary Clinton called this “the politics of personal destruction.” She complained that it was being leveled at her, but she gave at least as much as she got. The whole recent campaign was consumed by it, and one had reason to hope that the end of the campaign would provide some relief. But apparently this is not to be. The mainstream media won’t let it go.